Boxed In: Best Kevin Costner Movie about Baseball – Field of Dreams vs. Bull Durham

One film's as American as apple pie. The other's as American as a six-pack of Budweiser and Marlboro Lights. On today’s Boxed In, Yahoo's fantasy baseball experts and lovers of late '80s sports films Andy Behrens and Scott Pianowski debate which Kevin Costner vehicle is the ultimate film about America's pastime. It's a battle over toiling in the minor leagues, playing catch one last time with your dad, and really, the soul of baseball itself. Watch or listen to Boxed In every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on Yahoo Sports, YouTube or on your podcast provider of choice. Subscribe: https://apple.co/39UC09o https://spoti.fi/3aVpV56

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

HANNAH KEYSER: Hello, and welcome to "Boxed In," Yahoo Sports' debate show. I'm Hannah Keyser, and today we'll be discussing the respective merits of two classic Kevin Costner baseball movies. I love baseball. I don't love movies. So I'm curious to see if either of you can convince me that these are worth my time. It is a quarantine, so I do have a lot of time.

I am joined today by Scott Pianowski, who will be arguing in favor of "Bull Durham," and Andy Behrens, who is taking "Field of Dreams." Now, got to be honest upfront. I prefer "Bull Durham," but that means I'm going to judge you harder, Scott. And so to kick things off, I'm going to toss it to Andy first to have him make a case for "Field of Dreams." For these opening arguments, just tell me why you love the movie.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah, I'll just say I have nothing bad to say about "Bull Durham." It's one of those movies you can catch at any point and dive right in. Great film. Nothing bad to say about it. "Field of Dreams" is so ambitious, and there are so many ways that this movie could have gone wrong and just become nonsensical and totally off-the-rails.

This thing has-- like, half the characters are ghosts. There's a disembodied voice that is a key character in the film. The thing's got time travel. They get into the mysticism right away. Like, opening scene, he's in the cornfield. He hears the voice. There's, like, just this one tiny sort of thread-the-needle way in which this movie can work. And they find it, which is kind of a miracle of filmmaking, I think.

So that's really great about it. Again, incredibly ambitious themes here. It-- like, working at multiple levels, maybe unlike "Bull Durham," right? You get the nature of self-sacrifice. We have mortality and immortality. We have, like, the ways in which we project meaning onto other people.

Like, there's a lot going on in this film. It's about relationships between parents and children, between writers and readers, between sports heroes and fans. There's just a lot here. It's a beautifully-done film. And it's kind of a weird, quirky role for Kevin Costner, too-- really unlike a lot of his other stuff.

HANNAH KEYSER: So Andy is going for the difficulty points all around. He's approaching this like it's a gymnastics routine. Ambitious movie--

ANDY BEHRENS: Yes, degree of difficulty--

HANNAH KEYSER: One that admittedly--

ANDY BEHRENS: --is everything.

HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah, exactly. Degree of difficulty-- I hear you on that. Now Scott, tell me why "Bull Durham" is just so much fun.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Yeah, normally I would pick the movie that is deeper and more ambitious in theme, which is certainly "Field of Dreams." But best baseball movie-- we're looking for accessibility here. And you can pick up "Bull Durham" at any point in the film and choose to ride it out.

Now, "Field of Dreams" is a movie you have to be invested A to Z to get the emotional payoff-- and some people might say even the manipulative emotional payoff-- that "Field of Dreams" gives you, where "Bull Durham" is about fun. It's about minor league baseball. I love that the name of the movie is a combination of Durham Bulls, which is the baseball team franchise. But it's also a nod to Bull Durham, who was a baseball player with the Cubs in the '80s. So I think there's something cool about that.

There's a lot of baseball being played in "Bull Durham." There's a lot of theoretical baseball being played in "Field of Dreams." "Field of Dreams" also a pretty lousy title, if you ask me. So even though I think "Field of Dreams" does stick the landing in the end. And, you know, the whole-- the way-- I don't want to take away from Andy's points or make them stronger for him.

I think it's a movie that does work, but you have to watch it A to Z. You can't watch it that often. If you just want a shot of baseball adrenaline, of baseball fun, of baseball cracker jack injected into your veins, at any point if "Bull Durham" is on, you could just say, oh, great. They're halfway through. It doesn't matter where the plot really is at that point. You can have fun for the next 90 minutes.

HANNAH KEYSER: What's interesting here is that you're arguing at such different points that I agree with both of you thus far. So we're going to have to drill down to some of the things that these movies have in common. So let's talk about, specifically, Kevin Costner's role. Do you like the acting? Do you like the character?

And let's work into this, also, the sort of ancillary characters, because there are great ancillary characters in both of them. And honestly, James Earl Jones might be the thing that "Field of Dreams" has going for it the strongest. So I'm going to kick it back to you, Andy, to start again.

ANDY BEHRENS: So specific to Kevin Costner, like, in literally every other film he's ever made-- certainly his other baseball films, his other sports films-- he is a super traditional protagonist who has some special-- either some special skill or heroic trait, right? Crash Davis-- really good baseball player. He plays a number of athletes-- Roy McAvoy. He's Wyatt Earp. He's Eliot Ness. He's the fish boy thing in "Waterwo"-- I forget who he was in that. But he's, like, a fish gill person in that movie. There's always some special quality to Kevin Costner.

Here, he's really good at the ordinary stuff, right? He's a wonderful husband. He's a great father. He is a [BLEEP] baseball player who becomes a [BLEEP] farmer. Like, he's just bad at everything he tries. And then he goes off on this quest. And it's just a different Kevin Costner role. It's not a role that we get from him in any other film.

The supporting players in this thing are pretty incredible. It is Burt Lancaster's last role on film. I think he did some TV after this, but it's his final role in film. He plays Moonlight Graham. It's a wonderful performance. Obviously, James Earl Jones in that character, like a JD Salinger-style character-- Terence Mann is the character in the film-- is wonderful. There's some great scenes between those two. The developing relationship between those two is fantastic.

It's Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe Jackson-- Ray Liotta basically just playing Ray Liotta. Like, that one-- if there's one thing that maybe doesn't work for me, but also is hilarious, it's-- like, Shoeless Joe, correct me if I'm wrong, I think, was just from South Carolina, died in South Carolina, probably sounded like he was from South Carolina. Ray Liotta is just playing Ray Liotta in this film. But he's really good. It works.

HANNAH KEYSER: He's a beautiful man.

ANDY BEHRENS: It's a great cast, too

HANNAH KEYSER: He's beautiful in that movie.

[LAUGHTER]

ANDY BEHRENS: He is. He's luminous, yeah.

HANNAH KEYSER: I think I might-- I think I would-- if I were arguing against you, I'd take-- I would quibble a little with the idea that he's a good husband. He's totally ready to walk out on his family and find out what's in the cornyard-- or, the cornfield. But all right. All right.

ANDY BEHRENS: It gets signoff from Annie. Like, he's like, Annie, should I do this? And she's like, you better do this.

HANNAH KEYSER: Well, maybe that also doesn't speak super well to his husbanding. All right, Scott. Tell us about Kevin Costner and the other characters. Susan Sarandon's style in this movie is incredible, in "Bull Durham."

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Yeah, I mean, you know, Kevin Costner is not utilized particularly well in "Field of Dreams" in the sense that a lot of other people could play him. One of the reasons why you put Kevin Costner in a sports movie is he's a really good athlete. He looks really good swinging the bat. He looks really good behind the plate. He looks like a legitimate athlete that you would buy. He has a good swing. He has the mannerisms down. And I don't know that he plays any baseball, other than a couple of games of catch, in "Field of Dreams."

His wife in "Field of Dreams" is hard to take. I mean, she's just a-- OK, fine. Do whatever you want, honey-- milquetoasty. Where you have Annie Savoy, who's well-read, who's going to read Walt Whitman to you, who's going to light a bunch of candles, and try to understand who you are, and get to your soul.

I mean, I love the Thomas Mann character in "Field of Dreams." But I mean, when you look at the fact that you get Costner playing an athlete, and being the wise cracker, and, you know, being kind of snarky, which plays to what Costner can play really well, and the way he imports advice, the way he doesn't really like the lot he's been placed in, but he eventually comes around to it-- I think he's asked to do a lot of things that he's very good at doing.

And the female main lead in the movie is so much stronger. They ask Susan Sarandon to do so much more than any female character is asked to do in "Field of Dreams," where they're almost just window-dressing in embarrassingly simplistic-- I also want to mention-- we didn't mentioned "No Way Out," but I think that's actually Kevin Costner's best movie. And I just want to throw that in there somewhere, even if it may curry me favor for no specific reason. And also, Judge and Jury Hannah, know that Andy Behrens went to the University of Iowa. So Andy Behrens has a secret--

HANNAH KEYSER: Oh, that's why--

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --Iowa--

HANNAH KEYSER: OK. All right.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --prejudice to this whole thing, OK? So I'm not sure if Andy's even qualified to make some of these arguments he's making. But just remember, he's probably wearing Iowa underwear right now, Iowa socks. He's got a-- you know, I'm sure he's got, you know, a George Kittle poster in the background that we can't see right now. So when you're making your decision, just remember this Iowa bias that needs to percolate to the top.

ANDY BEHRENS: I will not make any effort to prove or disprove any of those charges. Although, I do want to-- like, if I could just throw something in there--

HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah.

ANDY BEHRENS: --about Annie--

HANNAH KEYSER: Please, rebuttal.

ANDY BEHRENS: --Ray's wife in "Field of Dreams." There's this great scene. And it's-- like, it's a lesser scene in the movie. But like, one of the ways to view "Field of Dreams" is as this sort of '80s time capsule, right? Because there's stuff in there about, like, the farming crash.

There's also this whole scene about censorship and book burning. And Annie Kinsella, Ray's wife in the film, leads this-- delivers this wonderful monologue at a big meeting of the entire Iowa town where she's saving books from being censored. Like, this is the era of Tipper Gore, and parental advisory stickers, and crap like that. And like, they use Annie in, I think, a really effective way. And they give her dimension, and they go out of their way to give her dimension in the movie. And I feel like Scott is brushing past that.

HANNAH KEYSER: Well, I've never been to Iowa, and I was not alive for the '80s, so Andy is just talking-- like, I'm just having to take everything you say as gospel. I don't know any of this. But it sounds pretty good. All right. Let's get into-- we've touched on the fact that you can find these movies pretty easily, especially now during a time of quarantine and no baseball.

They're both playing on MLB Network, like, constantly. I don't know how they're both playing this much, if you feel like they should be overlapping. So let's talk about, what are the more iconic scenes, iconic lines? Like, what's the cultural legacy of both of these movies? And Scott, I'm going to throw it to you first this time.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: I could do an hour and a half on great quotes from "Bull Durham." At one point, Crash says--

- Strikeouts are boring. Besides that, they're fascist.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: By the way, I feel that way about baseball right now. I wish the three true outcomes didn't dominate the baseball world. Annie, at one point, says, "The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness." You think that this movie isn't a think piece, but then, you know, she's throwing all this philosophy at you and all this stuff that's going to feed your soul. I think there's so much more nuance to this Susan Sarandon performance than a lot of people realize.

I love every time Crash makes fun of Nuke. One of the problems you have to get past in "Bull Durham" is that Tim Robbins doesn't look at all like a baseball pitcher. He's just-- no form, no athletic ability, at least in baseball. But at one point, Crash taunts him and says, look, show us that million dollar arm of yours, 'cause I know you have a $0.05 head. And that's just a timeless baseball quote.

Crash has given all sort-- my favorite scene is when he's on the bus talking about how Nuke's going to handle being in the show, how he's going to handle the media, all the questions he's going to be asked by the Hannah Keysers of the world when he finally makes it. Then remember, too, I know this can be seen as a flaw, but Crash has a very long speech where he's explaining what he believes in.

That's another great scene in the movie and a great extended quote. And we can't repeat all of it, 'cause not all of it is PG-13. I think it's funny, though. He mentions that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. We know Costner must have done a 180 on that, because he played in "JFK" about four or five years later, which is Oliver Stone's, you know, conspiracy theory about what happened to JFK.

But there's a lot of thinking in this movie. This movie-- for, ostensibly, a comedy, and maybe even a romantic comedy, there's a lot more depth in some of these-- I could have mentioned a bunch of things that are just knee-jerk funny. But there's a lot of soul in this movie. I think people lose that sometimes.

HANNAH KEYSER: And now, "Field of Dreams." Now, this is maybe the-- this is the category where "Field of Dreams" will do the best, 'cause everyone knows the iconic lines from "Field of Dreams." Andy, take it away.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah, and I don't know-- like, I don't know if "Field of Dreams" can go as deep in terms of quotes. But like, the money quotes from "Field of Dreams" had been, like, printed on T-shirts and sold across the state of Iowa for a long time.

- Is-- is this heaven?

- It's Iowa.

ANDY BEHRENS: --is, like, the definitive quote from this film. Bunch of great ones, though. James Earl Jones is given such wonderful lines in this film. At the end, when he's talking about how people are going to come, and they're going to watch the games-- and he says, "There are going to be memories so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces." He's just given wonderful dialogue here. So is Costner. There's, like, a really good forgotten line where he's addressing the baseball players and says--

- That's my corn out there! You guys are guests in my corn.

- Ray.

ANDY BEHRENS: --which is delivered really well. Like, it's full of really nice scenes, really nice quotes. My favorite scene in the film is probably when Costner goes-- and it's one of the only, like, purely comic scenes in the film-- when Costner goes to abduct James Earl Jones, and they go back and forth, and James Earl Jones is attacking him briefly with a crowbar.

At one point, James Earl Jones says, "oh, you're from the '60s," and then tries to chase him away with some insect repellent. Like, it's just-- it's really good. There's a bunch of wholesome, really fun scenes, and they all work.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: When we do our abduction draft, I'll try to remember that scene.

[LAUGHTER]

HANNAH KEYSER: All right. Now, before we get to the closing arguments, I want to give you each a chance to-- you respect to the other film, but maybe bring it down a peg or two. So Andy, tell me what's wrong with "Bull Durham?" Why shouldn't I pick "Bull Durham?"

ANDY BEHRENS: "Bull Durham" is one of my favorite films, right? And it is as-- I will concede, as Scott says, that it is a film that you can pick up at any point. And that's maybe-- that's not really a knock on it, but it tells you that it's more in the vein of sort of classic comedies, right? Like, I can pick up "Bull Durham" at any moment and have a good time with it.

And he's right. Like, you got to-- like, if you're going to watch "Field of Dreams," you've got to get yourself in the right headspace. You've got to watch it start to finish. It's just purely a more ambitious movie with a lot more going on than is going on in "Bull Durham," which, again, really quotable film. Really fun film.

HANNAH KEYSER: Scott, why shouldn't I pick "Field of Dreams?"

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: I talked about some of these things earlier. I think there's a little bit of emotional manipulation in the film. It's an awful title. And baseball's really used-- they see the movie in the prism of baseball, but this-- I don't know that this film couldn't have been made about a different sport, you know?

I think the movie is about relationships, and it's about believing in something and having faith in something. I feel like "Bull Durham" has to be about baseball. There couldn't be a minor league group of basketball players or a minor league group of football players or something. I think it has to be a baseball movie. I feel like the themes of "Field of Dreams" are broad enough that maybe some of it would apply to a different sport.

HANNAH KEYSER: All right. So now for our closing arguments, Scott, you actually just touched on this. But because I'm a baseball person and that's what we're talking about-- and that's why I'm getting to judge this-- I want to hear you guys tell me, in your closing arguments, what these movies say about baseball, because they both have pretty strong, like, baseball ethoses.

Along with having, like, jokes, and scenes, and these really memorable lines, they take a pretty strong stance on baseball. So in your closing arguments, I want to hear why what they say about baseball is better. Andy?

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Sure, I-- oh, is he going first? OK.

HANNAH KEYSER: Or Scott, you want to start it? Scott, you go first.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Yeah, you know what? To hell with Andy.

HANNAH KEYSER: You're ready to go.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: I'm the leadoff hitter here, you know? Base-- this is really easy for me. This is the simplest part of this to set up. Baseball's fun. You watch "Bull Durham," you can't escape how much baseball is fun. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes you create your own rainout, which is another great scene in the movie.

And to me, the best baseball take-away about this is the idea that the lesser players so often make the best teachers or mentors. Crash Davis is not going to be a major league player. You know, yeah, he's had a bunch of home runs in the minor leagues, but he's a footnote in history. But he's actually the perfect person to be teaching Nuke LaLoosh how to make it in the majors.

And we see that so often in baseball. The best managers, the best hitting coaches, pitching coaches-- they're not always the best players. Usually they're not, because it's somebody who knows how it is to fail. I mean, even a great baseball hitter who hits 300 fails 70% of the time.

A lot of times, it's through thoughtful failure in baseball that you become a really good teacher, mentor, you know, somebody who oversees things later in your life. So I think there's all sorts of great baseball themes. I would start with, though, the idea that baseball is fun.

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah. So I want to do a couple things here, one of which is to rebut what Scott was saying about the idea that "Bull Durham" couldn't-- you couldn't make "Bull Durham" about anything other than baseball. Literally, the guy who made it-- literally, the writer of the film, Ron Shelton, made a very similar thematic movie about basketball, right? "White Men Can't Jump" is the same sort of toiling forever at a lower level of the sport but really loving it, and doing a thing for its own sake. Like, you can make that movie about other sports.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: You could loosely connect them. I don't know. That's a little--

ANDY BEHRENS: "Field of"--

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --reach for me.

ANDY BEHRENS: "Field of Dreams" is a really aggressively about-baseball movie, right? From-- Terence Mann says it in the movie. "The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball." Like, the whole theme of the film is that you can basically tell the story of, like, post-Civil War America through baseball. You can constantly tie it to baseball. You think of, like, heroes of baseball past, and you know the era. And they are-- like, the era is synonymous with them.

There are these themes of, you know, how baseball connects us from, like, father to son, from father to daughter. It is a uniquely-baseball movie that couldn't possibly be about any other sport. And it's sort of entirely about baseball as, like, the foundational rock of the American experience.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: I want to make one other point here, OK? I don't know anybody--

HANNAH KEYSER: I'll allow it.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --who didn't like "Bill Durham," OK? It may be a single for them. It may be a double for them. But I don't know anybody who didn't like it on some level. "Bull Durham" gets on base. I feel like, with "Field of Dreams," people either love that movie or can't-- or go run away from that movie and can't stand it. It's like a Rob Deer type of player. It's one of these, like, 25, 30 home run guys who hits 210 and strikes out a lot. Some people love the movie. They cry.

I-- look, I get choked up when he has the catch with his dad, too. But I feel like the on-base percentage of "Bull Durham" is so high, because, again, most people are going to like it. If they don't love it, they're going to at least like it. I think that has to be considered before we get our final decision.

ANDY BEHRENS: I'm just going to say that if you don't get a little weepy when Moonlight Graham steps off the diamond and turns into Burt Lancaster again, I think maybe you're a sociopath.

HANNAH KEYSER: It should be a movie about Moonlight Graham. If it was a movie about Moonlight Graham, I might like it better.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: You know what? If they called the movie--

HANNAH KEYSER: I think--

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: If they called the movie "Moonlight Graham"-- does anybody else hate the "Field of Dreams" title? 'Cause I can't stand it.

HANNAH KEYSER: Not as much as--

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Why do you want to call it "Moonlight Graham?"

HANNAH KEYSER: --you do, I don't think.

ANDY BEHRENS: It is not the title of the-- like, the original origin story of the film, right? It's "Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa" or something like that, that I'm sure they-- I'm sure--

HANNAH KEYSER: Oh, that's worse.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Right? I actually knew the writer--

ANDY BEHRENS: Yeah, I'm sure a group decided that that was not saleable.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: WP Kinsella was actually a tournament Scrabble player. And when I was a tournament scrabble player, our paths crossed a little bit. I did not actually play with him, as I was too good to play him, it turns out, in our competitive Scrabble careers. But I was on an elevator with him, and he's sitting there with his lanyard. It's got his name on it. I know who he is. And I just looked at him, and I said, thank you for "Field Of Dreams."

HANNAH KEYSER: Oh. So all right. That's a-- we're going to end on a confusing note, 'cause now I'm left with both of you loving the other movies. This is a tough one. So this is a tough one. So as I established, personally, I prefer "Bull Durham." Now, Andy, you really got me with the degree of difficulty argument, because I think that's a strong place to come from with "Field of Dreams," 'cause it's true. It is a weird movie. I don't know--

ANDY BEHRENS: Super weird.

HANNAH KEYSER: --who thought of it or why. And that it works at all or that it ever got made is impressive. Now, Scott, I-- with the whole "this could only be made about baseball, and 'Field of Dreams' could be made about any movie," you almost had me. Andy, you flipped me again with "White Men Can't Jump." Also a great movie.

But here's where we brought it home. Scott, your on-base percentage argument-- I'm a sucker for-- I loved it, 'cause it was a great baseball analogy. But it also, I think, really is the deciding factor. And so even though this is going to make me sound like I just came in with my own opinion all along, I'm giving it to Scott and "Bull Durham" for the on-base factor, for the idea that it's always fun. It's always a good time.

And in general, my way of consuming baseball is to lean away from the self-seriousness sometimes and into the fun. And I think that, particularly now, like, that's what we're missing in-- from baseball not being in our lives, is that consistent fun-- that thing that everybody loves.

And now I applaud you with the degree of difficulty argument, Andy. But I think, ultimately, because that worked so well with the on-base argument, I couldn't deny that "Field of Dreams," sometimes you love it, but sometimes you really hate it.

ANDY BEHRENS: [SIGHS] Oh, man. I've got a losing streak going in "Boxed In" that I gotta break.

[LAUGHTER]

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Well, I think, maybe, part of the reason why I triumphantly won this is I recently saw "Moneyball." And if we learned anything from '"Moneyball," it's that OBP is life, right? So--

HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: --this one goes out to Scott Hatteberg, and Billy Beane, and-- you know, of course, I love-- speaking of manipulative movies, I love how "Moneyball" never mentions that they had the-- AL MVP was playing shortstop, but they had three number-one pitchers on their pitching staff. But yeah, thanks, Billy Beane. Thanks, Scott Hatteberg. Thanks, "Moneyball." And thank you, Hannah Keyser. I-- all those nice things I said about your work before the podcast-- they stand now.

ANDY BEHRENS: I will say, this is the first time that I haven't lost to a-- like, because of a corrupt judge. Recently, it's been Wetzel. It's been Vinnie Goodwill. It's been obviously corrupt judges. I want to say that I respect your work here, Hannah.

HANNAH KEYSER: Andy, I will keep that in mind next time we tape a "Boxed In." You can catch new episodes on Yahoo Sports every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. Oh, also subscribe. Congratulations, again, to Scott and "Bull Durham." But we also have a ton of time right now to re-watch both of these movies. So maybe we'll, I don't know, come back and do it again with another couple of baseball movies later.

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